Blood Red

[brynmawr1]

Wartorn kitchen    consider 'The kitchen wartorn,'
Our favorite place to fight
A battlefield bedroom   also, 'the bedroom a battlefield'
Where love was made and war  is?, it helps to write in present tense when possible
And love again       then?
Can we leave it all behind?    semicolon, I think.
Mend the fence and rebuild the chapel   
Respect and honor our foes?    I realize this is a theme but 'foe' isn't working for me and I don't think you need this and the last line.
Or make the hell of our childhood
Our home     period?
I plea, let our pain rest        consider 'My plea- let our pain rest'  could even move to a new line after emdash
It takes tender hands to make a nest
That we've never known
You pick up the knife        These two line seem like a nice ending
I had just put down
The enemy is inside us
But it's not who we are, only part
My white flag flashes 
In the blooshot of your heart
Pupils constricted we both die       as an aside, when people are upset/aroused the pupils actually dilate.
Respect and honor; Our foes.



Auxillary verse im not sure can be squirreled in, or used for another poem.
--Harsh words rest
Like bullets in our breasts
memories of battles we're reliving-

Hi Sprucemoose,

Welcome to the Pen.  Overall, I like the piece with its themes and it has some nice imagery.  I do think the first half is stronger than the second after the plea.  It gets a little muddled for me after that.  I made some suggested line rearrangements but there are others to consider.  The only other thing I would mention is the intermittent punctuation.  Certainly in poetry, use of punctuation can be fluid but usually when done, should be intentional and to add meaning of some kind.  I don't see that here so much, so I would recommend being more rigorous to help the reader navigate better.  Advice I often don't follow myself!  All suggestions are just that, so take what seems helpful to you.
Thanks for the read,
bryn